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Why "the Crowd" is Wrong about American Airlines

"How do you make $1 million in the airline industry? Start with
$2 million and know when to quit."

As the
economy
drifts toward a possible
recession
, investors are increasingly scrutinizing balance sheets of major
air carriers for signs of real trouble. Companies that carry too
much debt can end up in bankruptcy court if sales fall and losses
grow. Venerable names such as Braniff, Eastern, Pan Am, National,
Midway and Aloha Airlines no longer exist after bumping up against
a weak economy. That was precisely
the logic behind
my
bearishcall
on
AMR (NYSE:
AMR
)
,
parent company
of American Airlines, back in July. The mere perception of a
bankruptcy scare is enough to spook investors.

Shares
have lost half their value since my bearish view two months ago,
highlighted by a 33% drop on Monday, Oct. 3, alone. Investors are
surely recalling the events of 2003, when AMR saw its stock slide
to just $1.25 on the heels of a bankruptcy scare. AMR managed to
avoid bankruptcy back then, and its shares moved back to $40 by
2007.

The good news: the chances of a bankruptcy are still remote, and
this obvious short candidate may just be morphing into a long
candidate with significant upside. Let me explain...

How steep a drop?
The question for AMR and its fellow airlines is a clear one: How
would these firms fare if demand slumped and price wars kicked in?
For carriers with relatively strong balance sheets, such as
Southwest (NYSE:
LUV
)
and
JetBlue (Nasdaq:
JBLU
)
, rising losses can be tolerated for an extended period. For
carriers that carry ample debt but also operate in a very low-cost
manner -- such as
Delta Airlines (NYSE:
DAL
)
-- exposure to falling demand is also limited. AMR is stuck with
the double whammy of high operating costs and a lot of debt.

Yet a series of factors should swing in AMR's favor, helping it to
avoid bankruptcy. For starters, AMR had been especially hard hit by
rising fuel prices because it carries the thirstiest fleet in the
business. Management has long talked of modernizing its fleet
toward more fuel efficient planes, just as
United Continental (NYSE:
UAL
)
has, but limited financial firepower has crimped AMR's fleet
upgrade plans. (The average age of an AMR plane is 14.8 years,
compared to the industry average of 11.7 years. The older a plane,
the less fuel-efficient it is likely to be.) Luckily for AMR, a
global economic slowdown also means a drop in the price of jet
fuel.

AMR's
balance sheet
is also not quite as bad as the plunging stock price may indicate.
The company has roughly $4 billion in unrestricted cash and about
$3 billion in
bonds
coming due in the next two years. This implies the carrier can't
burn more than $500 million in the next two years before bankruptcy
concerns really start to bite.

At first blush, AMR's financial picture seems awfully tenuous.
Merrill Lynch forecasts the carrier will lose around $200 million
in
free cash flow
for the rest of this year and another $350 million in 2012. By that
logic, AMR's cash balance would move below $500 million by the end
of next year, once upcoming tranches of debt are repaid.

Increasingly, this looks like a worst case scenario. Instead, AMR
is likely to extract better-than-expected concessions from its
pilots and other labor associations, simply because few
stakeholders have an interest in pushing the company into
bankruptcy. Lower labor costs -- the carriers' second-largest
expense after fuel -- will surely help.

Moreover, Merrill Lynch's analysis doesn't incorporate falling fuel
prices, and the recent drop in jet fuel is likely to save AMR
nearly $100 million in 2012. (Fuel expenses account for 33% of
estimated industry 2011 costs, up from 15% in 2000.) Lastly,
current forecasts don't account for AMR's ability to simply shrink
away from unprofitable routes, taking its most inefficient planes
out of service.

All about capacity
It's that last factor that industry bears may be overlooking. A key
theme of the recent airline industry rebound has been a tight grip
on capacity. For example, the major carriers have been planning
route cuts throughout this year, and total domestic industry
capacity in 2012 should be close to 5% less than 2011. This means
carriers will be less prone to vicious price wars to fill empty
planes, as has been the case in the past. Revenue and yields (the
percentage of seats filled) will surely drop if we go into
recession, but not likely to the extent many fear.

Airline stocks are taking it on the chin these days, perhaps to an
even greater extent than the broader
market
. If the economy stays flat or slips into only a mild or
short-lived recession, then the current sell-off surely creates a
compelling entry point for investors. The stock you find appealing
should be based on your risk appetite. JetBlue, for example is
low-risk because it has a strong balance sheet and its
market value
of $1.1 billion is well below its tangible
book value
of $1.7 billion.
Delta
carries more risk, thanks to nearly $15 billion in debt, but is
also quite lean and better-equipped than most for lean times. As I
noted
a few months ago
, this stock could rise sharply in a better economic picture.

What about AMR? Well, as noted, the odds of an actual bankruptcy
filing are still quite remote. And in the event industry pricing
and crude oil prices stabilize, investors will start to take note
that the carrier now trades for less than two times projected 2012
EBITDA
. Indeed, AMR's stock likely has the greatest upside of any airline
carrier, perhaps 300% or 400%, if the economy ends up back on a
growth path in 2012 or 2013. The downside of course, is the stock
could go to zero, so AMR is only suitable for investors with a high
degree of risk tolerance.

Risks to consider:
What could go wrong? Plenty. Americans are still traveling --
for work and for pleasure -- but a deep or prolonged economic
slowdown would boost the popularity of "staycations" and
video-conferencing. Industry balance sheets are unlikely to be
rocked in the near-term, but they can't really withstand losses
that extend beyond four to six quarters. You need to calculate burn
rates for these carriers and steer clear of any carrier that has
less than 12 months of cash left based on current quarterly loss
rates. That's not a red flag for any of the carriers I mentioned
yet, but it would be by late 2012, in a worst case scenario.

Action to Take -->
The airline industry is a notorious black hole for investors' cash
when industry conditions suffer. But also recall that AMR's stock
rose from $1.25 to $40 in the middle of the last decade. The risk
is considerable. But so is the reward.

-- David Sterman

Disclosure: Neither David Sterman nor StreetAuthority, LLC hold
positions in any securities mentioned in this article.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

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